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OT: Brilliant write up on why everyone hates Reggie Evans

Just in time for tonight's game, enjoy this evisceration of the human flop machine known as Reggie Evans...

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On Nov. 21, the NBA issued its first fine under the new ban on flopping. The target of the $5,000 penalty was, to no one's surprise, Reggie Evans of the Brooklyn Nets. But like the gentle hand on the back that sent Evans stumbling and flailing all the way off the court, the punishment barely touched the true problem. The flops are simply the most obvious example of the fact that the NBA is becoming camp. And no one is a more annoying purveyor of camp than Reggie Evans.

Reggie Evans doesn't play the part he's supposed to. You'd expect a guy who's assigned the hard-screen-setting, glass-crashing, post-defending scut work of the NBA to take a more straightforward, paint-by-numbers style of play. He's the worker doing workmanlike work, the Grant Longish sort of player who gets profiled by the local beat writer after everyone else on the team has been written up, with lines like "He's not looking for glory" and something about lunch buckets.

Annoying as those stories are, there's something admirable about their subjects, the guys who hang on to NBA careers through sheer force of will, as quiet, effective cogs. They may have ugly games, but their obscurity keeps their pathetic skills from standing out. Restaurants need dishwashers. Your neighborhood needs a good garbage collector. The NBA needs its Joel Przybillas.

That's the type of player Reggie Evans ought to be. He should be totally anonymous in the flow of the game, till you check the box score at the end and notice that he scored six points and grabbed nine boards, and held the man he was guarding below his season average. But no. Whenever Reggie Evans does one of the little, unglamorous, helpful things—one of the few things he can do—he makes sure the whole goddamn world knows about it.

Time to set a pick? He tries to tackle guys without using his arms. Is there a chance to draw a charge? His rock-solid, 6-foot-8, 245-pound body goes staggering wildly at the slightest contact. He wants to be menacing, so he wears a crappy beard, shaves his pate, and mugs like a WWE heel. He wants to get position when rebounding, so he grabs Chris Kaman's balls.

"Well, he's great to have when he's on your side," you say? No. No, he isn't. This isn't Dennis Rodman, a self-contained performance on a healthy team. Evans is a perverse sort of role model, whose sensibility infects entire teams. He emerged from obscurity with the Sonics, after a few years as an undrafted free-agent benchwarmer, when coach Nate McMillan wanted to bring some toughness to a team led by Ray Allen and Rashard Lewis.. He helped transform a franchise that for 15 years had been considered "soft," by acting like what ESPN columnist Frank Hughes called a "hooligan." During the 2004-05 season, the Sonics' last relevant year, Hughes wrote, "Evans played well enough to earn a job, throwing around his body on defense, grabbing enough rebounds to matter and infuriating opponents with a style that could best be described as aggravating. At worst, it could be called assault and battery." The team took on Evans's ****ty style and though it worked for one year, it fell apart soon after, and the Sonics returned to the cellar.

Then he was off to another team to assault the eyes of a different fan base. He's bounced from Denver to Philly to Toronto; last year, he landed with the Clippers, and look what happened. All it took was that one year for him to turn a team built around a telegenic budding superstar, Blake Griffin, into an infuriating, campy mess. Let Reggie Evans loose—even for 13.8 minutes per game, as the Clippers did—and soon everyone else is "taking" a "charge."

Now he is in Brooklyn, a "gritty" player on a club that's selling itself as "gritty" to reflect its borough. I guess he fits the Nets' new brand, which involves a marketing plan based on that gritty reputation AS IF the team weren't nestled in a sea of gentrified neighborhoods. Helmed by Jay-Z, who acts AS IF he owns a majority share of the franchise. Playing in an arena adorned with pre-rusted steel to make it look AS IF the building has been there for years. Wooing a crop of well-heeled Brooklyn hipsters who style themselves AS IF they're indigent woodsmen. "Being-as-Playing-a-Role," Susan Sontag called it, in "Notes on 'Camp.'" If we have to endure Reggie Evans in the NBA, at least we know he's in the right place.

Simple. . . Fine a flopper $10,000 per flop. After three flops they miss three games . . . Result, no more flopping.

I really hope that the NBA comes down hard on floppers. If they don`t then we will have a situation like we do in football - sorry my American friends, you call it soccer- One of the reasons I gave up watching football was because of the pathetic way that players are constantly diving and throwing themselves on the floor to get the referee to blow for a foul. The reason this happens is because the football authorities have never tried to stop it and do nothing when players do it constantly. If the NBA doesn`t stop flopping now then it will get worse and worse and, just like in football, the cheaters will win.

Simple. . . Fine a flopper $10,000 per flop. After three flops they miss three games . . . Result, no more flopping.

I really hope that the NBA comes down hard on floppers. If they don`t then we will have a situation like we do in football - sorry my American friends, you call it soccer- One of the reasons I gave up watching football was because of the pathetic way that players are constantly diving and throwing themselves on the floor to get the referee to blow for a foul. The reason this happens is because the football authorities have never tried to stop it and do nothing when players do it constantly. If the NBA doesn`t stop flopping now then it will get worse and worse and, just like in football, the cheaters will win.

I have a lot of issues with David Stern and the league office but their continued whiffing on addressing flopping really strikes a nerve. Reports have said that there has been less flops this year but I still don't think they have done enough. Flopping is cheating plain and simple. I understand that tough 90s basketball is gone and the league has gotten softer. It took me awhile to accept that but theres no chance in hell I'm going to come around on flops and accepting them. Even when Gallo was here I didn't like it from him. 10K might be enough of a fee to stop a marginal player like Evans though.

Simple. . . Fine a flopper $10,000 per flop. After three flops they miss three games . . . Result, no more flopping.

Mark, as an Englishman you pretty much know what happens when someone's trying to flop/dive in football. As soon as he gets busted he earns a yellow card. Every single time he gets "yellowed" his club has to pay a fine to the league. Two yellow cards in a game and your fella gets ejected with a red card in his pocket and the club has to pay even more $$$ to the league. Two yellow cards in two consecutive games and our flopper sits out the next game. Five yellow cards in a season and your man ain't gonna suit up the very next time your team plays. I guess a T for each flop would do the trick.

Mark, as an Englishman you pretty much know what happens when someone's trying to flop/dive in football. As soon as he gets busted he earns a yellow card. Every single time he gets "yellowed" his club has to pay a fine to the league. Two yellow cards in a game and your fella gets ejected with a red card in his pocket and the club has to pay even more $$$ to the league. Two yellow cards in two consecutive games and our flopper sits out the next game. Five yellow cards in a season and your man ain't gonna suit up the very next time your team plays. I guess a T for each flop would do the trick.

The trouble is that they rarely get booked or sent of for diving as the refs often fall for the act.

Yes, a technical for every flop would be better than my earlier suggestion.

The problem I have with it at the moment are that the flopping is only dealt with after the game. What's to stop teams paying the fines for the players if their flop resulted in a foul on the other team.

I agree with Scipio, if you're found guilty of repeated flops, you miss a game. They should be treated as technical fouls anyway.

The problem I have with it at the moment are that the flopping is only dealt with after the game. What's to stop teams paying the fines for the players if their flop resulted in a foul on the other team.

I agree with Scipio, if you're found guilty of repeated flops, you miss a game. They should be treated as technical fouls anyway.

There's not really much they can do during the game. NBA games already have far too many interruptions, they are trying to reduce these not increase them.

Most of the flops are only caught by the league postgame, they review any play submitted to them.

I agree that a $5000 fine is not enough, they need a more severe punishment.

NBA games already have far too many interruptions, they are trying to reduce these not increase them.

What about one minute timeouts being one minute timeouts instead of getting extended to 3-4 minutes because of corporate $$$? What about cutting TV timeouts? And finally, what about games starting on time instead of a quarter later again because of advertising money? An average Euroleague game takes around 1.5 hour compared to 2.5 hours of an average NBA game...

What about one minute timeouts being one minute timeouts instead of getting extended to 3-4 minutes because of corporate $$$? What about cutting TV timeouts? And finally, what about games starting on time instead of a quarter later again because of advertising money? An average Euroleague game takes around 1.5 hour compared to 2.5 hours of an average NBA game...

Without jersey sponsorships, they need to milk the TV networks for all they're worth.